Sunday, September 25, 2011

The last installment of Adventures in Multicultural Living in AnnArbor.com:

The University of Michigan Center for Chinese Studies is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year. As usual for an academic department, they have all sorts of lectures and films and art exhibits and concerts and performances and colloquia and conferences planned.

Kicking it all off is the New Millennium East Meets West Kite Festival this Sunday, Sept. 25, 1-5 p.m., at Nichol’s Arboretum. There will be kite-making workshops, kite flying competitions, cultural performances, and kite masters from China and Michigan. There will be special categories for students and community. It's a real town and gown and east meets west affair, much like the dragon boat races they organized at Gallup Park in 2007.

I had the good fortune of being invited to help with some kite-making workshops through Parks and Rec and to escort fourth-generation premier kite master Ha Yiqi — with whom two U-M Art and Design faculty apprenticed this summer in Beijing — to visit local elementary schools. I also enjoyed the neat kites made at the Center for Korean Studies’ Chuseok celebration.

I am excited to see what this year will bring. During the University of Michigan LSA ChinaNow Theme Year in 2007-2008, converging as it did with University Musical Society’s Asia Festival and the Ann Arbor/Ypsilanti Reads Asian American book, I met so many incredible people (including my literary hero, playwright David Henry Hwang) and was given the gift of so many personal and professional opportunities. My whole life changed that year, and I did my best writing ever.

Unfortunately, AnnArbor.com will be discontinuing my column, “Adventures in Multicultural Living,” to focus more of its resources on local news.